$100 in 1917 is worth $303 in 1970,
because prices increased 203.1% over that period, an average of
2.11% a year.
$100 in 1917 has
the same buying power as
$303
in 1970
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
203.1%
Average inflation rate
2.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$303
Price difference ($100 base)
$203
CPI in 1917
12.8
CPI in 1970
38.8
Inflation in 1917
17.43%
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
$100 in 1917 → 1970
$303
$100 in 1970 → 1917
$32.99
What happened to prices between 1917 and 1970
Between 1917 and 1970, the Consumer Price Index went from 12.8 to 38.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 203.1%, which works out to an average of
2.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1917 bought what
$0.33 buys in 1970: the 1917 dollar
lost 67.0% of its purchasing power over
these 53 years.
1917 is when World War I inflation stopped being a background trend and
became the dominant fact of American economic life. Consumer prices rose
17.4% for the year, more than double the previous year’s already sharp
increase, as the country’s April 6 entry into the war layered federal war
spending on top of an economy already strained by military demand and
worker shortages. Congress paid for the war with the War Revenue Act that
October, which sharply raised income taxes, created a new tax on wartime
business profits, and, in a small but very visible change for ordinary
households, raised the cost of a first-class stamp from 2 cents to 3 cents
that November, the rate’s first move since 1885. Herbert Hoover took over
the new Food Administration in August and asked Americans to conserve food
voluntarily rather than face formal rationing, a campaign that became
famous enough that “Hooverize” entered the language as a verb for cutting
back. None of it slowed prices much: the 17.4% increase would be topped
again the very next year, in 1918.
Every 1917 amount converts to 1970 at the same ratio, 3.03: $1,000 becomes
$3,031, and $10,000 becomes $30,312.
Amount in 1917
Value in 1970
$1.00
$3.03
$5.00
$15.16
$10.00
$30.31
$20.00
$60.62
$50.00
$152
$100
$303
$500
$1,516
$1,000
$3,031
$5,000
$15,156
$10,000
$30,312
$100,000
$303,125
$1,000,000
$3,031,250
Inflation by spending category, 1917–1970
Between 1917 and 1970, apparel rose the most, up 193.1%, while food rose the least, up 170.3%, against 203.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1917
spending costs in 1970, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1917 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.11%
$303
Apparel
2.05%
$293
Food
1.89%
$270
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1917: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1917 to 1970
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.04% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1917–1970 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1917, at end
1917–1920
16.04%
56.3%
$156
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$130
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$109
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$188
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$231
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$303
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1917
$100 from 1917 had already become $135 by
1943, on its way to $303 in 1970; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1970
In 1970, prices rose 5.7% and $100 from 1917 had the buying
power of $303; the year's average CPI of 38.8 is the level
behind every 1970 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.7% in 1970, up from 1969’s 5.5%, extending a
run of faster price growth that stretched back to the mid-1960s, even as a
recession that began in December 1969 pushed unemployment toward 6%. Prices
and joblessness rising together confounded the era’s economic thinking, which
held that policymakers could trade a little more inflation for a little less
unemployment; 1970 was an early sign that trade-off was breaking down, a
pattern that would harden into stagflation later in the decade. Washington
restructured how it delivered mail that year: after postal workers staged the
first strike ever by federal employees that March, Congress passed the Postal
Reorganization Act in August, replacing the cabinet-level Post Office
Department with the independent U.S. Postal Service. Environmental policy
also took shape in 1970. An estimated 20 million Americans marked the first
Earth Day on April 22, and the Environmental Protection Agency opened that
December to enforce the Clean Air Act and the pollution rules that followed.
The Vietnam War kept dividing the country: on May 4, National Guard troops
fired on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four
students and setting off strikes on hundreds of campuses. A median household
earned $8,734 that year, a gallon of gas averaged 36 cents, and a first-class
stamp cost 6 cents, the rate it had held since 1968. Prices stood 291.9%
above their 1913 level by the end of 1970, a milestone that
would look almost mild against the decade still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1917 to 1970: $100 is worth $303 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1917-to-1970/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1917 to 1970. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1917-to-1970/